Pages

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

It’s
the 29th of August already. Despite having written a post on this
blog around 12 days back, the pressure of writing a piece every two weeks
builds up like the burden of getting a 26 year old daughter married as soon as
the end of the month deadline approaches near. With my enthusiasm levels at the
lowest on a scale from Alok Nath to Prabhu Deva, I sit down to type another
piece and fulfill my bi-monthly duties.

In
recent news, I have passed the set of CWA papers I gave in June this year. A
little party to celebrate the same is yet to be planned, but I thought it’s
just to let my taste-buds engage in some foreplay with sugary somethings from
the local grocery store. A trip down to the local sardarji uncle’s shop ended with a small purchase of a Cadbury’s
5-Star. Even though my body got enough calories to last a 30 second orgasm, my
tongue was left with a longing for an old lover. It’s depressing how in spite
of the rise in per capita disposable income in the Indian economy over the past
one decade, the sweets and confectionery market has plummeted to the level of offering
kids with products wearing taglines like “do
rupaye mein do laddoo”. It’s sad how today’s children don’t even know about
the wonders that were “Pan Pasand” and “Ravalgaon sugar boiled candies”. To
commemorate some unsung heroes from the time when icing on the cake meant white
cream topped with a little pineapple piece, I bring to you a list of some
candies that my tongue still identifies as its childhood best friends.

Swad

This,
my friend, is the grand-daddy of all digestive “tablets” in the world! Swad has
always been one of my favorite candies of all time, and therefore, deserves no
lesser than the first spot on this list. An elder cousin of Hajmola candy, Swad
brought with itself a sense of Indian-ness that Hajmola candy can never match.
The silver packet bordered with a checkered brown pattern was Madhubala, if
Hajmola’s pink or green wrapper was Preity Zinta. It had a taste stronger than
all the other digestive candies of its generation, and was loved by my dadaji and me alike.

Swad
not just made my gall bladder wet with excitement, but also gave Pooja Bhatt an
opportunity to star in a TV commercial, thus keeping her mind off movie scripts
that involve people like Emraan Hashmi rubbing their sand-paper on half naked
ladies.

Swad
has slowly been left alone by its grand-children who are too busy selling
tattoos under their skins, housed in fancy jars that adorn the shelves of a
local grocer. Has it died a silent death? I guess not. It may still be fighting
the last few months of its existence in a remote village, near its manufacturer’s
factory.

Fatafat/Chatmola

From
a big piece of candied jal-jeera
called Swad, to little pellets of gastrous joy, our markets used to be full of orange
packets with black polka dots that sprawled across the local shop entrance like
prayer flags at a Tibetan monastery. Fatafat was my small packet of happiness,
the digestive qualities of which my innocent brain did not care for. My love
for Fatafat was selfless. I would pop one pellet at a time, never all at once,
and relish the tangy flavor slowly. It was Fatafat that introduced me to the
usage of “khatta” with “kaala”.

Another
variant of packed digestive pills was Chatmola that sold in a yellow and red
wrapper. Everyone’s favorite “Appu the elephant” adorned the front of its
wrapper and made the kids jump with joy.

I
still manage to spot Fatafat at a store or two, but Chatmola is no longer a
survivor in the market. If you were to get me a nice birthday present, please
pick up some packets of Fatafat. Phir
treat pakki!

Ravalgaon Candy

Ravalgaon
candies were India’s answer to Fox’s. Its transparent cover was the first to
teach me that these sweets are “sugar-boiled”. They are available in a variety
of colors like yellow, red and orange. My favorite among them used to be the
orange; I think because that was the only flavor I could identify. There’s one
with a blue cover too, but I've never been able to tell the difference between the tastes
of the blue one from the yellow.

Pan
Pasand and Mango Mood were other offerings from Ravalgaon, and ranked higher in
my list as compared to their competing products by Nutrine and Parry’s. They
still sell in the market, but face stiff competition from Cadbury’s and Parle.
The multinationals may be doing a good job at marketing their products, but
their products can never match the panache with which Ravalgaon candies shower
with a bang from a balloon over a young boy's birthday cake.

Phantom Cigarettes

I
remember the red pack of cigarettes that would open up to 10 sticks of sugar
colored in red at one end. Phantom Cigarettes were peppermint flavored candies
that were not minty enough to attract girls off Close-up billboards, but still macho
enough to make little boys believe that they had a chance with.. um, Minnie
Mouse?

I
remember one of my cousins buying me a pack of these “cigarettes” on a trip to
the market close to my aunt’s house. We loved its taste, and the novelty
quotient it sold on, but I cannot forget how disapproving my parents were of
the so called candy. So, my experience of machofying myself with a Phantom in
my mouth was short-lived, but I think I wouldn’t mind seeing it in the market
again. Or maybe I will. It’ll have a bad effect on the psyche of kids.

Shit,
have I really grown that old!

Kismi Bar

Parle’s
Kismi Bar was an inexpensive substitute to a chocolate. I believe it tasted of
cardamom, and was more of a “toffee” flattened out into the shape of a bar. For
about a rupee or two for a bar, it was a good option during times of sudden
sugar cravings.

The
red cover of the product displayed a silhouette of a suited man being kissed by
a beautiful lady. What makes me call her “beautiful” is probably the fact that
her shape was colored in white, in contrast to the man, who was a shadow of
black. Go ahead and judge the shameless racist in me if you want to. I come
from the land of Kismi, where cows are considered holier than the ride of
Yamraj, the buffalo.

Jelly Belly

If
you ask my parents about my favorite dish as a kid, I bet the pack of Brown
& Polson custard powder in my kitchen that they will say “jelly”. A
die-hard. No, a die-jiggly jelly fan, as a six year old, I would demand jelly
be made in our kitchen every single day of the week.

To
save her the pain of making jelly every day, my bua would get me a pack of Jelly Belly from her way back home after
office every evening. I would tear off the plastic cover and suck the whole
jelly off the cup in an instant. Candle-shaped jelly sticks were soon a rage
with the other kids in my colony, but my loyalty remained towards the Rex Jelly
that was shelved in our kitchen or the little shivering shots of “Jelly Belly”.

Most
of these much loved sweets are no longer seen. I miss them. Yes, I do. But for
me, there’s always a bit of fresh Jalebi to love. Happy Sweet-toothing.

Friday, August 17, 2012

10. You can apply for your own credit card, with your name printed on it. Oooh! And you can give your best photograph for it. No more driver's license kinda photos on cool id's.

9. You'll feel so good to have earned enough during the year to fall into the tax brackets. Warren Buffet in the making, eh?

8. You'll contribute a sum for the development of the nation. Jai Hind.

7. You'll declare your income and make your money white. While Dawood Ibrahim has to deal in drugs, invest in Bollywood and buy properties in Monica Bedi-esque women's names to make his black money milky-milky white, you just have to file an income tax return.

6. Your employers deducted some tax from your salary. Those bloody law abiders! It's time to see if you can claim some tax refund from the TDS.

5. Letting me e-file your IT Return will avoid the whole nonsense of bribing Income Tax officials. You'll feel cool like ACP Pradyuman, or Barney Stinson for having eff'd the IT clerk's dream of little Gandhiji's dancing to "paisa paisa kardi hai" in his drawer.

4. If you're too busy, just email me the details, while you're at your work desk, or sitting in the loo, trying to poop and simultaneously emailing on your smartphone.

3. Paying my nominal fee will feel like paying for a stand up comedy session. I assure you of full entertainment, sir.

2. We'll not just drink coffee together, but I'll also make you have really cool iced tea. Choose from mint, peach and lemon. Or have all 3.

1. We'll get to meet each other. It's been a long long time. Let's catch up on all the latest news, make fun of our ex-girlfriends/boyfriends, finish every sentence with ''that's what she said'', make prank calls and live it like the old times.

So you see, this is not just an excuse for me to throw a ''coffee, tea or me'' at you. It's ''Income Tax Return, coffee, tea AND me.''

Friday, August 10, 2012

As
the world approaches a much talked about end in another few months, it’s good
to see that humankind is beginning to accept what fate holds for us all.
Instead of building modern versions of Noah’s Arks with billion dollar seats to
help the wealthy sail through the impending washout, we are all getting
together and enjoying the last few days of the world as we know it. A thought
binds us close. While the virgins look for ways to bang a thang before the
apocalypse, the experienced go berserk on the internet and substitute periods
with #YOLO. The beautiful epiphany of only getting to live once has given us a
reason to come up with another viral acronym. Ladies and gentlemen, to give it to you in a nutshell, “You Only Live Once”. Wow! Now let’s all shout YOLO.

It
took me months to figure out what LOL meant when it hit cyberspace in my early
social networking days of hi5.com. OMG was acceptable, and so were Bebo and
Lolo. But, let’s not turn everyone into the Kapoor sisters by giving a grand welcome
to “Yolo”.

I
see my twitter feed full of YOLO hashtags, and it’s permeating to facebook,
too. It’s not surprising that Americans with an IQ equal to the number of
thumbs on Hrithik Roshan’s hands are so thrilled with the whole idea of getting
to live only once. But what raises great concern is how we Indians, who feed on
shows like Raaz Pichhle Janam Ka on
the most popular television channel in the country, are blindly falling for such
buffalo dump. Let’s not forget that we are “karma-yogis”.
We believe in the cycle of life after death. We strongly hold on to the belief,
nay, -fact- that whatever we sow, we will also reap. If not in this birth, then
till the reaping burns us out of the shackles of life and death.

In
my attempt to keep us in touch with our unquestionable beliefs, I bring to you versions
of YOLO that connect with our souls. Ooh, deep! Since charity starts at home,
here’s defining YOLO for the average Delhiite.

YO’ Lusty Organ

Since
the early ‘90s, we Delhiites have given a whole new meaning to the word organ.
The evolution is noteworthy. There was a time when Shahrukh Khan would blow on
a mouth organ, ride his red bike and sing a song in Kumar Sanu’s voice in every
second movie. And today, I realize how my mum was correct when she said that Bollywood
stars have short-lived eras of stardom on the big screen. We have easily replaced
Shahrukh Khan with every woman on the road. Taking them on “rides” and making
them “blow” organs is no longer a fantasy that makes people among us play
rocket-rocket in the privacy of their bathrooms. They no longer need practice
runs. The brilliant show that they put up makes us all read the following day’s
newspaper and say that we want to clap our hands on their faces. But we go and
clasp another woman the same day. Darn, the YOLOness!

There
are others who claim to treat women with respect. They touch their elders’
feet, drink milk every day, and make a trip to the colony temple every Tuesday.
They’re the good boys. Good Delhi boys, with a wonderful vocabulary of words
that define making love to the female members of every animate and inanimate
object's next of kin. Keeping their swords in the sheath, they claim to make babies with the
mother and sister of everything that falls within a radius of two-fifty yards.

“Yeh burger ******** itna chhota hai!”

“Yeh ******** red light kabhi green milti hi
nahi.”

“Saale, likh likh ke exam mein mere haathon
ki ** **** gayi!”

That’s
exactly the reason why we believe that HT City offers better literature than a
book telling us a story of a small boy being raped in an Arab location. Having
received our doctorates in the art of raping, stories of kite runners seem passé.
We claim to do every piece of furniture, every article of stationery, and every
item of food a hundred times every single day. That’s a YOLO worthy achievement,
don’t you think?

Yaar, One Large Oye!

From
the size of one’s car to the size of another’s Sainik Vihar farmhouse, we Delhiites
love measuring things with not a span or a cubit, but with eyes so wide that
put our inflated scrota to shame.

Let’s
put two big hands together for our city, which has made the statement “Tu jaanta nahi mera baap kaun hai” used enough number of times to be Guinness
worthy. Let’s also take this opportunity to congratulate the average Delhiite
who has excelled in the field of mathematics by proving that the number of
relatives one has is directly proportional to the number of digits in one’s
bank/under-the-table account.

With
posters of Royal Stag forcing us to question if we have made it large enough to
be called a Patiala peg, we fear being hungover the following morning, and dig
into a plate of chhole bhature cooked
in shudhdesi ghee. Our diet shows that we’re obsessed with food that’s big;
or food that’s cooked in pomace olive oil. Either way, we won’t stop ourselves
from mentioning at every occasion that even the aaloo keparanthe at our
place are sautéed in the literally “rich” olive oil. That speaks a lot about
mine, and Your Obsessive Love for Oil.
Another YOLO defining moment? I bet, saadi
Dilli.